After they had had lunch, the work was begun again, the men pulling out the big stones one after another. At last they came to where several large flat stones were set on edge, leaning one against another. These were pulled away, and then there was discovered a little chamber right in the centre of the barrow, walled in with flat stones; and in the midst of this little chamber a large urn of baked earthenware. Before anything was moved, Uncle John brought the boys to look, and showed them how the floor of the little chamber had been strewn with fine white sand upon which the urn was set. Beside it were three smaller vessels all empty, and lying beside them were two flint arrow-heads, a small stone axe, and a hammer made out of the thick end of a red deer’s antler bored with a hole to fit a handle into. Uncle John lifted the urn carefully out and they all looked inside it. It was full of dust and ashes, and some bits of charred bone, and some chips and splinters of flint that had also been burned. These relics were all gathered carefully together to be taken to the squire’s house, and the workmen began to put away their tools. As Uncle John and the boys walked home, Dick asked: “Did those people burn every one who died?” “Perhaps not every one, but they did it very often.” “Why did they?” “That is a hard question for me to answer--it was part of their religion, I suppose; anyway perhaps they thought it the safest thing to do.” “Did they always kill a man’s dog, too?” “That I don’t know. In many cases no doubt they did, because dog’s bones have been found in the barrows; sometimes horses’ bones have been found too, showing that people thought their horses could follow them to the spirit-world, and sometimes, it is thought, that a man’s slaves and even his wife were taken to the grave and killed, so that their spirits might attend his after death.” “How did they bore the holes in their axes and things?” David asked. “The hole in that hammer was as smooth as if it had been drilled.” “I daresay it was drilled,” said Uncle John. “Not with a flint tool, perhaps, but most likely with quite a different thing--a hollow stick, like a tube, with the boring end wetted and dipped in sand. With a tool of that sort you can bore a hole in any stone, if you keep on at it long enough, just as you can fine down wood or metal with sandpaper.” “I suppose you would twirl the stick between your hands and press hard on the top of it,” said David. “And if the stone were hard you would want fine, sharp sand,” said Dick. “Is there any more about Tig in the book?” Joe asked. “Yes, I believe there is more--he lived to be a very old man and became Chief in his time, and to him Garff bequeathed the wonderful bronze axe, Skull-pecker. He had much fighting to do; but he beat back his enemies and kept his people’s hunting-grounds and their cattle safe, as long as he lived.”